Why do right-wing Republicans hate Albert Gore so much?

Question

I post to several message boards and I can count on at least one right-winger going into a hysterical rant about ex vice-president Al Gore every day. I do not understand their anger against him. He seems like an ok guy to me.

Answer 1

I think a lot of it stems from the fact that he was the Democratic candidate for president, and does tend to lean a little more left than most centrist democrats. Pretty much the same reason left-wing Democrats dislike Dick Cheney.

I used to dislike Gore for a variety of reasons, and I"m not a right-winger. He has (or rather used to have) a cold and detached personality. He honestly at times did sound like a robot. His monotone voice also got to people since it made it difficult for him to show compassion genuinely. During the 2000 presidential debates, he also seemed more arrogant (all the sighs, remember?) than his opponent, and seemed so similar to him ideologically that it was difficult to distinguish the two.

Recently there has been much debate about Al Gore's own practices in regards to energy consumption and global warming. Much of this was, and still is, propagated incorrectly by the media. The fact of the matter is, yes, the Gore household consumes a ton of energy by anyone's standard. The less-frequently reported fact is that Gore purchases his energy from companies that generate it from wind and solar power. Thus, while he's losing a ton of money in electricity bills (which is anyone's right to do, as long as they have the money to do so) he's not polluting the environment in any way by doing so. So before everyone jumps on Gore as a hypocrite, check everything out first.

Also, all this debate on whether or not global warming exists or not is meaningless. The scientific consensus is that it does. I can tell you from a chemical standpoint it makes sense. The problem is that it's the sort of issue that if you don't sort out now, it can majorly destroy us in the future. Some people like to argue that "well, 1400 years ago we thought the sun revolved around the earth" so scientific consensuses can be wrong. However, it's also important to realize that 1400 years ago, there were scientists who tried to say that we were wrong and were instead punished for it. The Church was a powerful force in dissuading astronomers from accurately reporting things back then, and planting seeds of doubt in the general public's minds. This is similar to what our government is doing today.

The fact of the matter is we're all just too lazy to want to do anything about it. A country with a relatively small percentage of the world's population produces about a quarter of all the world's totally greenhouse gas emission. We like our comfortable life, driving our SUV's and having 5 TV's for a single family house. And I'm not going to be a hypocrite here: i enjoy all of those things too, and am not willing to sacrifice them. But I realize the consequence of my actions, and don't try to pretend that they have no effect.

Also "rukiddingme", Gore got 500,000 more votes than the current president. An independent AP recount conducted after the inauguration showed Gore would indeed have won Florida (by something like 48 votes) had the entire state been recounted as had been ordered by the Florida State Supreme Court. As such, it's incorrect to say Gore didn't come close to winning (when in fact he won the support of the majority of people) and that the election wasn't stolen from him (the supreme court's ruling was highly suspect at best, largely motivated by political affiliations, and criticized by both the American Bar Association and other international organizations.

Good day, sir.

Answer 2

Well, I can't speak for all right-wing Republicans, but I think I have an idea of what the problem is. I consider myself an independent, but seem to vote republican on more than 50% of the issues.

The issue with Al Gore starts with the 2000 election. Without getting into an argument about that whole thing....Al Gore really thinks that his presidency was stolen from him. The anger should probably be aimed at Nader. He cost Gore the election...not Bush.

But I percieve the bigger issue to be Al Gore's crusade against Global warming. He wants us to stop burning fossil fuels, stop greenhouse gasses....and hey...save the planet! How can anyone hate him for that?

Well, The problem is that there is a whole other side to the Global Warming issue that you will hardly ever hear about in the media. It's the side that most Rebublicans and conservatives believe. I also happen to believe this other side of the story. I'll explain what I believe to be the truth and you'll understand why Gore seems so annoying.

I don't for one minute doubt that global warming is happening.
It's happening...no doubt about it. All you have to do is look at a thermometer and see it. We can look at the record books and see that temperatures are rising. Pretty scary stuff. Well don't stress out about it too much. Remember those Ice Ages we learned about in school? How do you think they ended? That's right? Global warming melted the glaciers away as the earths temperature rose....then of course the temperature went down again...and then we had global warming and then it got cold again. The earth has these warming and cooling patterns it goes through. That's not a theory...we know this happens. So now we're seeing the tail end of the warming...and it's probably going to get much warmer before it cools down. What can we do about it? nothing. Even if we stopped burning fuels...we can't stop the earth from doing what it does naturally. Even with no SUV's around...the earth warmed up enough to end the Ice Ages.

Al Gore makes it sound like it's just Green house gasses...fossil fuels. Stop that and you'll save the planet. He suggests doing things that could wreck our economy. Other countries would love to see us crash and burn...so of course they want us to do those things. Like the Kyoto agreement. No one really has to do much except the US....The international community would love to bring our economy down to their levels. This is why Gore is a hero overseas.

Gore comes across as being very narrow minded and opportunistic.

That's just my opinion.

Answer 3

How about those carbon credits for starters - he has that big house and uses 17 times more energy than the average family - and buys his way out of guilt by using carbon credits (someone else being super good and selling their goodness back to him and other people on the open market) yet he says the ice caps are melting and we need to conserve energy. MR. GORE WHAT'S STOPPING YOU?

Meanwhile any real scientist (for example Bill Wattenberg, eminent Physicist and talk show host on KGO Radio in San Fancisco) will tell you nuclear is the way to go. but no - the Greens (who Gore is co-opting trying to win an election) say that nuclear is not cool, is dangerous, so they are forcing U.S. Policy to stay frozen, forcing us all to burn more fossil fuels so that we can have our energy needs met, all because they (Greens) will not allow new power plant construction, primarily because to keep up with the demand for power (a demand accelerating daily) it will have to be nuclear. So in essence us Repubs (actually I'm a Repub/Libertarian cross) think he's a hypocrite for wanting the best of all worlds FOR HIM, that is, and allowing this mess to not only continue, but to get worse; and we dislike him in his efforts to aid and abet misinformation that is divisive to and at cross-purposes with the needs of this great country of ours. Other than that I like the guy - don't trust him, though!

P.S.: Dr. Wattenburg maintains that it has not been proven that Global Warming is solely man-made rather than natural and exacerbated by man. He was in on the naming of several new elements at Lawrence Livermore, but, hey, he's a right-winger, hence suspect, right? Us peon ignoramuses know better. We love reality TV so it must be good! Now, let's read a quote from the Communist Manifesto ... Comrade Evans, would you be so kind as to read? I changed my mind - let's read from Animal Farm: "All animals are equal - but some animals are more equal than others".

Answer 4

Same reason gays hate Pat Robertson.

They want to control key aspects of our everyday lives.

No pun intended w/ "key."

I've READ the latest IPCC report. Lot of dire warnings. Lot of info as to what temperatures WERE over the last 150 years - i.e., coming out of a multi-century cool period. The only tangible evidence of causation is the change in size of the troposphere and stratosphere.

The problem is that when those changes STARTED to happen, the issue du jour was Hillary's healthcare plan. So, we have a 120 year warming trend and tangible evidence of human involvement for only 10% of that period, accounting for 0.3 degrees F warming.

And that's assuming that the otherwise naturally occurring warming would have just stopped after just under 100 years, which isn't what happened last time.

So giving them every benefit of the doubt there's still no case to justify tripling the price of power and doubling the price of your commute which make no mistake about it is what's going to happen - even if somehow you could generate enough power without coal or natural gas, the cost to build the new plants would have to be passed on to the ratepayers. The utilities' capitalization ratios are typically already 60% to 75% debt - the financing cost alone would be enormous. Sorry, you need more than that a lot of the people who study the issue "believe" it's the case though none of them can actually prove it, before you make such sweeping changes and place such a huge burden on American consumers.

Who exactly voted thumbs down on this - look, who the F does the guy think he is? He wrote that cars should be outlawed - OUTLAWED. That's pretty close to the government telling you where to live. And he was almost President! You're not afraid of that?

Answer 5

GOPsters hate smart people. That's pretty much it. Look who they backed to become President, after all!

As for the bollucks-artist above who's repeating that TIRED old rumor that Gore claimed to have invented the Internet, here's the truth...not that TRUTH and Republicans mesh, really:

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

Answer 6

First, why do you think that only ultra conservative Republicans dislike Al? Although I tend to ally myself with the conservatives, I could be thought of as a moderate. I still don't like him!

Why? Because I don't like the lies he's telling about global warming. I don't like that he preaches to me to do things that he, himself, doesn't do. I don't like that he had a "passion" for the environment once upon a time, it disappeared, and then after he LOST the election miserably--he didn't even get his own state to vote for him--it has reappeared. I don't like the lies he perpetuated about the President "stealing" the election from him when even Bill Clinton did as little as possible to help him get elected. I don't like the thought that there are people who went to film school because they have a legitimate passion for making films but Al gets this "vision" out of the blue and he not only gets his film made, but it's distributed in major theaters. Very few documentaries get that consideration. And he did one film, once in his life and it just happens to win an Academy Award, but it wasn't political in any way? Right! He's a big phony and fraud. That's why!

Answer 7

For the same reason why people absolutely hate George Bush. If you do not agree with a person, you will make a huge deal out of the smallest fault or difference you have with the person.

The Right does not understand Al Gore, just like the Left does not understand George Bush.

Answer 8

He's a really nice guy. That's not the problem. The problem is he is a left wing liberal Democrat & Republicans especially today's theocratic Republicans hate Gore not only for his global warming slide show but because he leads it off with "I am the President" & Republicans hate that.

Answer 9

Other than him being a hypocrite? Or totally incorrect in his Global Warming stance? Gee... can't think of anything...

Answer 10

Control pollution the way the US government controls you and you will solve the extinction problems.